Partition systems are often employed to isolate portions of a building or room, by serving as a barrier to dust, noise, light, odors, and the like. In construction zones, partitions are useful for protecting a clean area from a work area, for example, protecting an area where furniture and rugs are temporarily stored from an area where wood floors are being refinished.
Workers at construction sites often use rudimentary techniques for installing partitions. Some simply nail, screw, or staple the curtain or partition material to the floor, ceiling, and abutting walls, resulting in damage to their surfaces. Other people setting up a barrier use tape or other adhesives which could resulting in paint being removed from the wall or the adhesive material being difficult to remove. The tape usually fails to stick, but if it does stick, as the tape is removed, paint can pull off with the tape, or adhesive is left behind.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,469, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a partition mount system that addresses these limitations. This system offers the advantage of accommodating standard extension poles, for example, painters poles, with standard threads, and is compatible with a variety of commercially-available curtain or drape materials, for example plastic, cloth, and the like. The disclosed system is a “clean” system designed to be installed and removed without damaging or otherwise marking the ceiling, floor or walls in the construction zone. Assembly is easy and fast and can be accomplished by a single individual. In certain applications however, a sag, or gap, may be present in the curtain along a mounting pole next to a wall, ceiling, door frame, or other abutting surface, compromising the effectiveness of the installation.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,533,712, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a mount system that mitigates or eliminates sag, or gaps, between an installed curtain and an abutting surface such as a wall or ceiling. The system accomplishes this in a manner that avoids permanent damage to the wall or ceiling surface. The system includes a head having an elongated body and a compressible curtain interface. A pole, for example, as described in connection with U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,469 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,658,219, may be configured to urge the head the curtain and abutting surface, thereby eliminating a sag or gap in the curtain.
In certain configurations, a pole supporting the elongated body of the head may be positioned so as to inhibit human movement. In addition, a single elongated head may not be long enough to eliminate all of the sag in the partition system, and, thus, multiple poles and corresponding elongated heads may be required.